Academic staff

Academic staff, also known as faculty (in North American usage) or academics (in British, Australia, and New Zealand usage), are vague terms that describe teachers or research staff of a school, college, university or research institute. In British and Australian/New Zealand English "faculty" usually refers to a sub-division of a university (usually a group of departments), not to the employees, as it can also do in North America. In the United States and parts of Canada, universities, community colleges and even some secondary and primary schools use the term faculty. Other institutions (e.g., teaching hospitals or not-for-profit research institutes) may likewise use the term faculty. In parts of the US, the term academic staff can be synonymous with just staff, which instead refers to staff that is not primarily involved with teaching or research. The higher education regulatory body of India, University Grants Commission, defines academic staff as teachers, librarians, and physical education personnel. In countries like the Philippines, faculty is used more broadly to refer to teaching staff of either a basic or higher education institution. Academic administration In many universities, the members of the administration (e.g., department chairs, deans, vice presidents, presidents, and librarians) are also faculty members; many of them begin (and remain) as professors. At some universities, the distinction between "academic faculty" and "administrative faculty" is made explicit by the former being contracted for nine months per year, meaning that they can devote their time to research (and possibly be absent from the campus) during the summer months, while the latter are contracted for twelve months per year. These two types of faculty members are sometimes known as "nine-month faculty" and "twelve-month faculty". Faculty who are paid a nine-month salary are typically allowed to seek external funds from grant agencies to partially or fully support their research activities during the summer months.